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For the benefit of others…

Last night I watched a program that I heard is referred to as a ‘docudrama’, which in simplistic terms is a factual documentary set aroundpeople & their social inadequacies, who dwell and survive in James Turner Street, Winson Green, a deprived inner-city area of Birmingham; where drama is an everyday occurrence, or so we are led to believe. Described by the small clip in the following link.Channel 4 ‘Benefits Street’ Every major town throughout the UK, Europe and the Western world suffers the same as depicted within the ‘docudrama’, though the levels of despair can vary dramatically. In all fairness to the people concerned in James Turner Street, the camera does lie, and with some fancy cutting and jaunty camera angles, it portrays the street in a far worse light than what appears in reality. In addition to this, there are thoroughly decent hard-working people who live along the street who are rarely shown, sadly they are now suffering the stigma associated with the socially inadequate portrayed, of whom live on government benefit, and survive through the murky world of fraud, theft, and drug dealing. Under these circumstances, the young have very little chance of breaking away from the legacy handed down by their parents, who in turn are part of a vicious circle of generations that have lived their whole lives on benefits, whose contribution is purely to the black economy that surrounds them. Two residents with their shoplifting spoils, as shown on the program supporting the black economy…

I despair at the youth of today, who allow themselves to be dragged down by their parents, who should know better through attending a digitally enhanced educational system, but continue with the hand that life dealt them. There are those special few who sign on for a military life, who do break free of the chain, and go on to make a true life for themselves, and for their children that follow. Additionally there are those who seek work further afield, and break free of the conditions encircling them.

Just recently I was privy to a collection of conversations, that took place between several ‘mid-teen’ potential candidates for a job opening. During the verbal interview each candidate was asked if they had a role model in life, and if so who, and why? All except one quoted a celebrity. The ‘one’ in particular mentioned a school friend, who had scrimped and saved to pay her own way towards a six month voluntary position working with a humanitarian group in Greece. The ‘one’ secured the vacant post, mainly due to her qualifications, but also supported by her verbal interview, and work ethics, which impressed the three person panel. After the interview my good friend asked who her school friend used as a role model, her reply was “Kate Nesbitt, the first female in the Royal Navy to win a Military Cross.”Kate Nesbitt receives M.C.A 21-year-old, five foot tall sailor, with a heart of oak…Medical Assistant Able Seaman Class 1. Kate Nesbitt M.C. Royal NavyWhose Citation reads ”Under fire and under pressure her commitment and courage were inspirational and made the difference between life and death. She performed in the highest traditions of her service.”

A few days ago ‘The Jolly Roger’ sent a link referring to Drever Watson(formerly Ms. Drever Belle McDonald), who had recently died aged 89. A Royal Naval nurse, who in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War cared for former prisoners of the Japanese who were too traumatised to return to normal life in Britain. At the outbreak of war, Drever’s mother, Stewartina McDonald, was in charge of the Red Cross in Dartmouth, and at 16-years-old Drever was recruited as a Red Cross volunteer. On her first day she was put on what were called “special duties” — sitting for hours with a mortally wounded young sailor until he died.Only in 1944, when she was 20, was Drever allowed to join a Voluntary Aid Detachment (or VAD) and be sent overseas. She became a theatre nurse at the Royal Naval Hospital Bighi in Malta, but it was after the war that she saw the severest casualties. These included some wounded from Burma and PoWs of the Japanese who were landed in Malta to be treated for trauma. A compassionate caring woman from a generation sadly leaving us, the same generation who would be proud of those stepping into their footsteps today…

Indeed, only this morning I had a reply from ‘Coffeypot‘ that included a link to Lance Corporal Kylie Watson M.C. Royal Army Medical Corps who was summoned to the office of her Commanding Officer for a ‘fireside chat’ she feared the worst. ‘Do you know why you are here?’ he asked the combat medic. ‘Am I in trouble, Sir?’ she enquired. ‘No,’ he told her, ‘You’ve been awarded the Military Cross.’ The 23-year-old, whose tour of Afghanistan’s Helmand province was her first as a fully qualified battlefield medic, was stunned. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right soldier?’ she asked. But there was no mistake. The extraordinary heroism she displayed by twice running into Taliban fire to treat wounded comrades had been recognised with one of the UK’s highest honours. A 21-year-old, five foot tall soldier, with nerves of steel…

All is not lost when we have past and present role models such as these, and there are so many more untold heroes who make up for the ‘ill disposed’ found in our inner-cities, not all of which have a military background. There are decent folk who give their time, as well as their money to assist those in need.The two champagne socialist clowns to the right are NOT classed as decent folk. They are as GUILTY as hell, and should be tried for treason for trying to destroy the country, and its economy when they were in power.

No doubt there will be a few socialist left-wing ‘nutters’ reading this who will pour scorn over my scribing’s, who will state that the right-wing Tory government are at fault! When in fact the same nutters stayed silent over the same diseased streets that existed under the last Socialist Labour government, who added to the problem by opening our borders to a mass influx of economic and social immigrants without back ground checks. And then blatantly lied over the numbers involved, who were then allowed to bleed the benefit system dry. ‘Gawd’ knows what the second episode will bring, but I, yours truly, will watch it, even though I know it will only get worse… Yours Aye.

Please do not think that I infer for one minute, that the heroines mentioned come from such a background as the ‘ill-disposed’ accredited to James Turner Street.

18 thoughts on “For the benefit of others…”

I am proud for each of these young ladies, hero’s all. But I always know there are others by their sides fighting just as hard. What seems heroic to us is everyday stuff to them. Both of our countries are lucky and blessed to have these caliber of young people doing the hard stuff to make our lives safer.

Old NFO, they are remarkable people, and I would hope they stay in and make it a long term career, they are a shining example for others to follow.
It never ceases to amaze me how people react when the occasion demands it, and so often by those not expected to rise up to it.

Quick dit: Sailing to the Falkland Islands on the SS Canberra was a surreal time for all aboard her. As you can imagine, the civilian crew had no idea what they were letting themselves in for, though no one expected to sail on past the Ascension Islands, as we all thought the Argentinean’s would capitulate and just leave without hostilities being forced upon them.
(And I would thoroughly recommend sailing to war on a cruise liner; top-hat).

At anchor just off the Ascension’s, the order eventually came to sail south as a Fighting Task Force, the Skipper of the ship offered the crew a chance to leave, which quite a few chose to do. Among them was a group of macho crew members who were often hostile and abusive towards the gay stewards (never openly in our presence, as it would not be tolerated). As this group of men walked to the gangway to depart, I and quite a few others felt nothing but utter contempt for them, especially as the stewards (to a person) stayed behind, as well as a lot of the female admin staff. These poor people had no idea what they had let themselves in for as pulled anchor.

The admin staff all volunteered to train with the RN medics, and the stewards all volunteered to train up and man the 7.62 mm machine guns, which were bristling around the ship. They all signed the articles of war and became temporary warriors…

Each day in San Carlos Bay I would watch the poor Canberra (an anchored sitting duck), being targeted by the brave pilots of the ‘Fuerza Aérea Argentina’ as they came in fast and low in their Skyhawks, to be met by a heavy fusillade of inter arcing air defence fire. Not once did those brave stewards falter and run from their guns, even when they were being strafed and bombed. I and others were choked with pride that they would ‘standfast’ in such a way. (And also pleased because that was our ride home)…

After the cessation (G.B. 1 – ARG. O) we eventually sailed back on our Cruise ship, and returned to the Ascension Islands to replenish and pick up the crew who departed earlier. It was a pleasure to see these sullen big bad boys walk up the gangway with their heads drooped, they were also very quiet on the way back.

EB,
These examples tell us that ‘All is Not Lost’. There a few who will survive the festering rot trying to overcome our world.
In the scriptures, they are referred to as”The Remnant”.
In the end, we will prevail…

It is tragic to see what has happened over years to Old Blighty. I quite agree that TB and GB should be tried for treason. (It is no coincidence that once of the first acts they pushed through parliament was the abolition of the death penalty for treason in 1998.)

Members of that government have openly admitted that they opened the borders to the third world (non-EU immigrants) just to annoy the “Tories”. I believe they said it was in order to “rub their noses in it”. When you think of who founded this party, it is ironic that its champagne-socialist leadership hold such contempt for the interests of their own supposed natural constituents.

The benefits system in Britain is being reformed, and is in desperate need of reform. In Germany (a favourite comparison of the British press), the tax system supports households: settle together and you get a tax break. In Britain, each worker is taxed individually. You have some families where there is one earner and one carer and they cannot pool their tax free allowances. If a worker in Germany has a child not resident in Germany, the Germans do not send child-allowance money to support the “overseas” child. In Britain, they do. There are EU Foreigners that have signed on and flown back to Britain with cheap flights that have been pulling this off for years and years, usually from countries where you would have to work a hard month of labour to get the same income. The fact that Britain is now seeking to reform this has brought on condemnation from completely hypocritical foreign governments.

Considering the benefits problem in Britain, a lot of these people have been trapped, parked on benefits. If you add together all benefits for a single, young person, then generally they would have to earn around 18,000 quid a year to live the same lifestyle. Under such circumstances, it is completely rational to consider looking away even from jobs that pay 20,000. Nobody in their right mind would work for 10,000 if they are just given 18,000 worth for sitting on their backsides. A common theme is that the British have been made lazy. I agree with this overall. Not so long ago, families in Britain used to go and collect harvests from the surroundings of the industrial cities: potatoes, berries. They valued the extra income, which was and still is paid well (£7-£8 an hour). Now, we see recent young immigrants from the EU who do not have immediate access to welfare just walking into those jobs and taking them willingly. I think that many of the British would be very happy to work on these jobs if they didn’t have an over-generous safety net.

As you rightly say, we have a set of heroes that step through this stuff. We also have roll-models that are probably bad for our society. (Many of whom are granted high honour.)

The problem is the existence of the Labour party’s client state. We have seen this before. When state-owned loss-making enterprises were proposed to be privatised, there was almost a civil war. The actual miners, as opposed to the trade unionists organising them in the 1970s-1980s, were on the whole very decent men. They turned up for a hard and bloody dangerous job every day. How much worse when the people experiencing reforms haven’t had a job between them for generations? Amazingly, Labour are polling well for the next elections and may even win.

What Britain urgently needs is to go Canadian: have a Conservative and a Liberal party instead of a Conservative and a Socialist party. The Canadian Liberals do not destroy their own country’s economy every 10 years or so.

The politics of Great Britain and the United States mirror each other. I come from a state that used to be divided by Democrats and Republicans. Both parties were conservatives. We elected the social conservatives (Democrats) for the State offices and sent Republicans (fiscal conservatives) to Washington DC. It worked, or perhaps it seemed to work until the liberals moved into the ranks of the Democrats in our state.

Today we have an overwhelmingly Republican state legislature who seem to compete with each other to see how far to the right they can extend the line. It is not working.

I am not an empathetic person. I do not understand liberals or their politics. I abhor socialism but understand sometimes a person needs a hand up. But all too often it turns into a hand-out to people too lazy mentally and physically to change their situation.

There used to be a middle ground. We have lost it, the trail back to it, and the map that shows us the way.

Okierover, it goes without saying that our countries run far better on capitalism, than they do on socialism.

As a young kid I remember asking my Dad what would happen if the UK was run on socialism (which was a question posed by a teacher at school, as part of the subject on the industrial revolution). He looked at me and said “it would be like adding sugar to a tank of petrol, the engine would run for a short while, then it would splutter and stop.” Made sense then, just as it does now!

It is my opinion that every body requires a hand to pull them out of the mire now and then, those that accept it have to accept the fact that it is not going to be there forever, The hand that assist’s is only a safety net that cannot be relied upon, just as the state benefit system is meant to be. Those that believe it is their entitlement for life (as a large proportion do), and that the government is there to look after them, are sadly mistaken.

We are fortunate in that we have four main political parties to choose from, with several smaller groups up and coming. It may well be the time for the United Kingdom Independence Party to be heard, as they are taking over the third slot and still gathering pace.

Quick dit: Earlier today as I was paying for some groceries, when I heard a bloke complain that his benefits had been slashed to his mate. He was buying a carton of 200 cigarettes, which cost him £82-, the same bloke is one year older than me, and I know for a fact he has never been in full time employment-ever-in-his-life, through choice. He has always relied upon the state benefit system, and that of his child welfare allowance for his seven children. Which at its peak was generating the equivalent of £70,000 a year.

P, I personally feel Ian Duncan Smith’s benefits reform is starting to work, slowly-but surely, the results of which show a modicum of 20 to 25 year-olds applying for work for the first time. The benefits trap was a rewardless socialist Labour process that was dragging the country down the tubes, which in my mind was a trap set to keep those poor unfortunates in their place (Vote Labour-we will set your free from your burdening yolk… eventually, when the coffin lid is closed atop you).

One of the Labour Governments worst ploys was to offer ‘training’ courses that paid between £15- to £30- a week; age dependent, which meant that young person was ‘in employment’ and no longer a statistic living on benefits. Additional ploys also massaged the figures, allowing the statistics to look as though they were falling. In actual fact the chains of socialism were simply tightened. After a three month course such as bricklaying, there was never a cat in hells chance of that youth picking up a trowel in the industry; so, back to another three months course on carpentry, and so it went on…

IMHO, a political party should be held in contempt over its failings whilst in Government, and as such should be penalised from entering politics for two political terms. A simplistic point of view, but very effective.

I will make a statement now; should Labour be successful in their next endeavour, then I am away from these shores, to a non european country, only to return to visit family and friends. It is my hope that the Tories do succeed in flattening the Labour party, to the extent that the flip flopping Lib-Dems are returned to the fourth rate bench, with UKIP sitting upon their previous seats. My wish to see the Tories remain in power is just so that the recovery can continue, which I do believe it will. BUT: there has to be a referendum very very soon, and before the next election. Aye.

PS:I have the greatest respect for Germany and its people, its mighty farming community, as well as its hi tech car industry, and industrial strength in general. I only wish it would pull out of the EU, just as the UK will, when we eventually do get to smell a referendum. Then let the rest of the European Union can get on with their socialist ways, they would seek bankruptcy within six months (but who would they seek assistance from when their own machine eats itself)?

I was unaware of the particular training scheme you indicated, but it really doesn’t astonish me. Of all the ministers in the government now, IDS and Ian Gove seem to be ones who have long terms plans to raise the game and I am pleased to hear that the reforms are working. Largely my attitude is the same as yours.

With the major exception that I emigrated from the UK once the Cameron government showed its true stripes. I thought that the party of Margaret Thatcher would step in and stop the decline after the catastrophe of the Labour years.

Instead, during a time of armed conflict far from home, we have had half the naval service scrapped, we have less sea-patrol aeroplanes than New Zealand and we have to endure lectures from a detached patrician on the merit of homosexual marriage and parliamentary time dedicated to this by the “Conservative party”.

That said, emigrating to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, certain West Indian countries would be a good thing. You’d feel more at home than under another Labour government.

As an earlier poster has stated this is a great post…you guys say it all and state it with passion, credibility and accuracy…you are so right when your comments on the US being almost a mirror image of Britain …a great deal of that problem is we here in the US have seen how tragically left leaning you have recently trod in Europe not to mention where you reside (discrete cough inserted) and the resulting failures…people like Barack Obama seem oblivious to the results you have experienced and want to do this here…most of us say absolutely not…when do we have a say and DC bureaucrats shut up?? When are they going to realize that repeating insanity over and over again remains crazy?? Or the attributed saying of Einstein ? Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results remains the definition of insanity… Our leftist Democrats don’t seem to get it…it isn’t that they care; they don’t and that’s even more obvious from their own obnoxious behavior…so here we are…what to do.? Admire and respect young people who do stand up and what’s right and behave as we see many when they recognize what needs to be done…hear, hear from across the Pond..,,k

Kristen, I do believe the game is up for Barry O and his circus. Each day their bad decisions throws more fuel upon their own fire, resulting in bad publicity, and humiliation.

Now adding more fuel is the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. (born and named originally as ‘Warren Wilhelm, Jr’, who then changed it to ‘Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm’, who changed it once again, and finally to ‘Bill de Blasio’)?
The obvious devastation that ‘Billy three names’ is about to create, will compound and impact upon the failures that Barry and his team have managed to date. It can only go down hill from here for these despicable people, and hopefully a lot of the stuff will splash over Hilarity Clinton!

Great post.
My grammy would have called the two young women, pips.
She was a nurse with Grenfell’s hospital mission in Newfoundland where she met her husband in 1925.
BZ to Able Seaman Class 1 Nesbitt.

Curtis, a while back there was a piece on the television series ‘the antique road-show’ that referred to Grenfell’s mission’s. Someone had brought in a burlap rug that the mission asked the fishermen’s wives to make, which were then sold on to fund the mission, its practice, as well as its hospital ships. Apparently the rugs are now sought after and very collectable. The mission is a truly remarkable story that had remarkable people working within it’s hallowed doors.

The RC education system I attended brought forth various inspirational people to the fore through its history lessons; Grenfell (born in Liverpool, England), being one of them. One of my favourite passages about this man concerns his near miss and survival on an ice floe. If only the youth of today could understand their false hero worship of those within the celebrity world is futile. Aye.